My Sister's Keeper

THOMAS WOLFE WAS RIGHT. You can't go home again. And I wouldn't have had it not been for my sister's accident. I flew back to Wilmington, North Carolina, and sat vigil over her for weeks listening to the beeps and clicks of the machinery that kept her alive, pleading with her not to die. Martha was the one person in this world that had always been there for me, believed in me, looked up to me, and never failed me. And I, Richard Charles Baimbridge, could not survive without her.

She kept me sane.

Even in the darkness of her hospital room, I could see beyond the bruises on her face to the whimsical little girl with auburn hair and bright eyes that had grown up alongside me. The curious perfectionist turned investigative reporter who would not let go of a thing until she'd figured it out. Like the time a girlfriend of hers showed up with a Rubik's Cube. Martha was only eight at the time, but she'd spun and twisted that thing relentlessly-practically that entire summer-until finally she woke me early one Sunday morning holding it out in the palm of her hand. All the colored squares were in perfect alignment and there was a look in her eyes I've never forgotten to this day. I was twelve and had given it a serious shot several times myself to no avail. That was the first time she'd beaten me at something, but it wouldn't be the last.

That moment established a pattern for her life. In some backward way, I became her motivation-her inspiration. If she saw me give up on anything, regardless of how insignificant-forgetting a phone number, finding the right nut to fit a bolt, or fixing a broken toy-she'd go after it with fanaticism and would not give up until she'd figured it out.

Being better than me challenged her and when she succeeded, it fulfilled her. I was proud of her, but not like Dad. Dad loved it. It seemed the more she outdid me, the more he liked it. And when she did beat me, he always cast that malevolent glare from the corner of his eye that cut deep and made me feel as though I'd stepped in something foul and tracked it into the house. By the time I left home at eighteen, there was a gap between my father and me that an ocean couldn't fill.

The connection between Martha and me, however, only grew stronger. I envied that spark she had, that do-it-or-die attitude, and the way my father thought she could do no wrong. But his praise never seemed to mean much to her, and maybe that's why she got so much of it from him. It mattered to me, though, and he knew it, and he manipulated it to cut out my heart. Ironically, she craved my praise instead of his and I gave it to her in heavy doses. It felt fantastic to be needed by somebody for something and I used it against him. Maybe that's why he hated me so much.

God! If only I'd turned on her, belittled her, or ignored her, maybe she wouldn't have ended up in her current state.

Though we'd talked on the phone weekly, it had been more than a year since I'd seen her. Her hair was shorter now, and she'd lost that baby fat that had lingered long past high school. Her eyelashes were long and thick-the envy of the whole family. Her cheeks were high and her lips were wide and thin like mine-typical of Dad's side of the family.

I pulled a chair up next to her bed, took her hand, and studied her fingernails where tiny bits of pink polish lingered-reminders of a time when her life had been full of hope, ambition, and romantic dreams. Dreams that were going to die hard.

Until the accident, things had always gone incredibly well for Martha. When she decided she wanted to go to college, Mom-somehow-had scraped together the money. "An anonymous scholarship, " she'd said. Martha graduated summa cum laude, took a job with the local paper, then landed the one she truly wanted; investigative reporter for the Raleigh News and Observer.

I'll never forget that day. We talked on the phone for hours. She was ecstatic! Twenty-four years old, armed with a Master's in communication, and craving that one big story with which to prove herself.

A few weeks later, Martha received a tip that a thirteen-year-old girl had been dragged to the top floor of an abandoned warehouse in Wilmington, raped by two men while being videotaped by a third, then bound, gagged, and thrown in the Cape Fear River to drown, and knew she'd found her story. It was a story I would come to hear Martha tell over and over...

"A FRIEND FROM WILMINGTON CALLED and told me about the rape. She said the little girl had survived and that Sam Jones-a detective I'd gotten to know well while working for the Wilmington Star-News-had been assigned to the case. After a two-hour drive, I planted myself in Sam's office and hounded him relentlessly until he finally agreed to let me have a look at the place where the rape had supposedly taken place. He told me to meet him there when he got off at 5:00 p.m.

"It was Halloween and a cold front was moving in. The temperature had dropped fifteen degrees since noon. I arrived a few minutes early, pulling my Toyota into the dirt lot next to the abandoned plant, and parked facing a sagging eight-foot steel-mesh fence surrounding the property. Railroad tracks crisscrossing the grounds all led into a huge four-story corrugated metal building set back along the river's edge. Among the tall weeds around the perimeter lay stacks of creosote-coated wooden railroad ties, rusting steel wheels, and bent rails. To the left of the building, a rickety dock jutted out into the Cape Fear River. Across the river, the trees were showing a hint of fall color.

"Knowing what had happened to that girl, I was afraid to turn off the engine. And when I finally did-after looking in all directions-the silence was nerve-wracking. I could actually hear my own heart thumping in my chest. As I waited, I envisioned that helpless thirteen-year-old being snared off the street, fighting against the strengths of three men-her cries smothered, her breathing obstructed by a powerful hand clamped over her face. I felt her terror as they whisked her across that barren yard to be held down, stripped, tortured, and raped in a night of horror from which she was not supposed to survive.

"A black crow abruptly landed on the hood of my car rattling me back to reality, leering at me with its yellow eyes. I honked the horn to frighten it away, then wished I hadn't, looking around to see if anyone had noticed.

"The street was deserted except for a group of trick-or-treaters crossing at the next intersection with their parents protectively tailing them fully aware of the dangers that lurked in the shadows of their young lives.

"I checked the clock on the car radio. It was 5:47. Sam was late. I dialed his cell number, but only got his voicemail. I hung up without leaving a message and began making a detailed description of the property and a list of questions I needed to answer for the story. Finally, as the sun melted into the trees on the far side of the river, I wondered if Sam had forgotten about our meeting. I called him again and this time left a message trying to sound relaxed and professional. 'This is Martha Baimbridge, ' I said. 'Just calling to confirm that we're still meeting at the warehouse. I'm here now and...waiting.' I hung up wishing I hadn't sounded so unprofessional.

"To fill the time, I jotted down notes on how I might package the story and a few angles to explore in the articles that would follow. I closed my eyes and imagined the panic that must have been going through that thirteen-year-old's mind and what could have been going through the sick minds of those bastards that raped her. What is this need some men have to have sex with little girls? Don't these monsters realize that they are children? That they will be scarred psychologically for life? Do they care? And why would they videotape it?

"A child's shrill scream abruptly pierced the darkness peeling the skin off my nerves leaving me feeling raw and exposed. I extinguished the interior dome light and searched the darkness around me sensing a thousand eyes out there watching me. Looking back at the railway yard, I noticed a flicker of light in the highest window in the building, but could not tell for sure if it was a light or a reflection.

"I tried Sam's phone again, and again I got his voicemail. 'Mr. Jones, I just heard a horrible scream and I think I can see light coming from a window in that warehouse. Please hurry.' After hanging up, I just sat there staring at that window horror-stricken that another young girl could be in there at that very moment having her youth savagely ripped away-perhaps even fighting for her life-and realized, Sam or no Sam, I had to do something.

"I took a deep breath, opened the door, and stepped out. There was a chilly breeze blowing in off the river and an oily, tar-like stench mixed with the fishy smell of the Cape Fear. As I pulled on a navy blue windbreaker, I made a mental note to keep a flashlight, running shoes, jeans, and an old sweatshirt in the car for future times like this. I switched my phone to vibrate only, crept along the fence toward the river, and found a break in the wire. Pausing one last time to check for Sam, I squeezed through the gap and crouched in the grass gathering enough nerve to go farther.

"Then, zigzagging around piles of scrap iron, I ducked into the shadow of the giant warehouse and laid an ear to the cold metal exterior. Hearing nothing, I crept along the edge of the building testing every door and window, but it wasn't until I pressed against a wooden hatch near the ground that I found a way to get in. Dropping to my knees, I shoved it inward breaking loose its rusty hinges and crawled into the opening to get a look inside. I listened for a full minute, but heard nothing. Figuring my imagination had gotten the best of me, I chuckled at myself and started to back out when I heard a whimper inside and cold terror seized me.

"Panicked, I retreated to the outside, ran to the corner of the building checking for Sam, then dialed his number again and left one last message. 'There's something going on inside that warehouse, Sam. For God's sake, hurry! I'm going in.'"

IN THE SOLITUDE OF MARTHA'S HOSPITAL ROOM, my mind drifted back to that summer day when a sixteen-year-old neighborhood bully named Jimmy Lassiter pulled a switchblade and tried to rob us. I was fourteen at the time and Martha was ten. Without hesitation, she snatched up a broken chunk of brick and hurled it, permanently blinding him in his right eye, and scarring me internally for the rest of my life. Coward!

Why couldn't I be more like my sister?

As I watched over her and prayed for her life, I promised God that night that if he'd let Martha live, no matter how badly she was injured, I'd take care of her for the rest of her life if needed. I hadn't kept many promises I'd made to God, but that was one promise I did intend to keep.

When Martha finally did emerge from her coma and I realized how much rehabilitation she was going to need, I went back to New York City, packed up my Tribeca photography studio, and hauled it down to Wilmington so I could help with her recovery.

After four months in the hospital, she moved back home with Mom and Dad and things got easier. In addition to helping with Martha, I set up a studio downtown and got involved in the local theatre. That was three years ago.

The events of that night at the warehouse cost Martha a kidney and left her paralyzed from the waist down. She's gotten used to the pain, the limitations, and the prognosis of a future alone, but I don't think she'll ever get over not being able to have children.

Although the police had a solid set of fingerprints and even some DNA evidence, the case still had yet to be solved three years later. Two more girls had turned up floating in the river and another two disappeared without a trace. The police feared they had a serial killer on their hands and-although confined to a wheelchair-finding the owners of those fingerprints had become the focus of Martha's life.

And mine, too.

I wanted her to go with me. I told her we'd go anywhere she wanted, but until this thing was resolved, she wouldn't leave-and neither could I. I was her legs.

When the police exhausted their leads, Martha talked Sam Jones into giving her detailed copies of the three sets of fingerprints they'd found in the warehouse. She ordered a fingerprint kit along with computer hardware and software on the Internet, and read every book she could find on how to collect, store, and interpret them. She became an expert.

I pushed her around town and took her places she couldn't go on her own so she could secretly lift drinking glasses, forks, and knives from seedy bars and restaurants from which to get fingerprints to scan at home.

Her scrapbook grew to contain more than seven hundred prints catalogued with notes identifying where they came from, when, and to whom they belonged-or most likely belonged. She even took to getting possible suspects to help her with her wheelchair just so she could get their prints off the handles.

That's all she had to go on. That and the name "Jack." But that's all she needed. She'd never give up, and had started to make some people very nervous.

Then she found something.

I had stopped by to pick her up for another outing and leaned in her bedroom door. "How'd we do, Babe?" I asked.

She was comparing two images of fingerprints on her computer screen. Her shoulder-length hair was pulled back in a short ponytail exposing her freckled forehead and thick Brooke Shields eyebrows. Through frameless eyeglasses resting on the end of her nose, she squinted at the screen. "I think we can finally rule out Jackie...Wilkes, " she said. The lisp in her speech was now gone and the hesitations were waning. I stepped in and kissed the top of her head.

"Good. Maybe we can move on to someplace else. Mickey's is starting to give me the creeps."

"But...take a look at this, " she said rolling her wheelchair to the side.

Leaning forward, I examined the images on the screen. "What?"

"See that faded print to the right of the dark one?"

"Got it."

"Now compare that to this one." She touched a few keys on the keyboard and the image on the screen changed. "This is number three from the warehouse, the one they found on the window sill." I looked back and forth between the prints. There was a scar in the shape of a slanted cross in them that seemed to match.

"Jesus! What was this on?" I asked.

"A cigarette butt. Do you know what...this means?"

"Print this out. We need to show it to Sam."

"It means the man was there."

"You're getting close, Babe."

"We have to go back."

Mickey's Pub and Rib House was a fancy name for a trashy hole-in-the-wall that probably hadn't served a rack of ribs since sometime back in the '80s. Patrons consisted mostly of bums off the docks, drifters, and drug addicts. The only regulars seemed to be the girls that hung out there shifting from lap to lap looking for enough money for a fix.

"I've got a busy day tomorrow. I won't be free until at least four and I don't think it's a good idea to be there after dark."

Mom leaned in the door. Pearl-as she was known to her friends at church-was Bette Davis in a size 16 dress with a southern drawl and a hint of white fuzz along the sides of her chin. It was her heavy, sad eyes that did it.

"You had dinner, Richie? How about some black beans and rice?"

It was tempting, but I was not in the mood for another round with my father so I lied. "Thanks, but yes I have and I swear I can't eat another bite."

"You ought not to let the things your daddy says bother you, Richie. You know he doesn't mean anything by it. He just doesn't know how to say things right."

I didn't reply. It was an argument nobody wins. "I'll see you tomorrow, Babe." I squeezed Martha's shoulder and kissed Mom on the way out.

The next day we stopped first by Sam Jones's office and showed him the printout. I was relieved, myself, when he told us to stay away from Mickey's-that they'd had a complaint that we were driving away his business. Sam said he'd stop in and see what he could find out.

But Martha didn't want to turn it loose. She wanted to at least watch the place for awhile and get photographs of those coming and going. I wanted to do like Sam said, to stay away, but I was ready for this thing to be over, too. With Dad constantly snapping at my heels reminding me of why I left Wilmington in the first place, I'd decided that just as soon as this case was wrapped up-as well as the play I was directing-I was out of there. Martha or no Martha, I was leaving. New York. Atlanta. Cleveland. Anywhere, but Wilmington. A place with a good theatre community. Everyone needs a hobby. Mine is directing theatre. It would be my career if I could figure out how to earn a living doing it.

With the Azalea Festival only days away, the streets downtown were ablaze with blooming azaleas and dogwoods. As we headed for my studio to get camera equipment, Martha was quiet, lost in deep thought, then broke her silence.

"Sister Hazel's going to be at the...festival Sunday, " she said gazing out at the street decorations.

"What does she do?"

"It's a rock band I...saw once." Her voice was heavy, thoughtful.

"Oh? I figured you to be more of the Carrie Underwood type."

"They were at Lincoln Theatre in Raleigh."

"Oh yeah?"

She wiped a tear from her cheek and drew a deep breath. "It was at that concert that Todd asked me...to marry him."

"Oh, Babe. I'm sorry."

She turned her face away and wiped her nose with a tissue. Marrying Todd had been her dream since high school. After the accident, he stopped by only once. We rode the rest of the way to my studio in silence where I picked up a digital Nikon, a high-powered telephoto lens, and a pair of binoculars.

"Can we go to the beach this weekend?" she asked as I turned off Market Street and headed into the older part of the city near the docks.

"It'll have to be early on Sunday."

"That's okay. It's been three years since I've seen the ocean."

"It hasn't changed."

She didn't laugh.

The neighborhood we drove through hadn't changed since we were kids either. Even the posters plastered on all the vacant buildings announcing the Cole Brothers Circus was coming to town looked the same. As we drove along, the trees thinned, the streets got dirtier, and the color faded to gray.

We pulled around to the back of a row of abandoned stores across from Mickey's and parked behind a hollowed-out brick shell of a building with the doors and windows missing.

I eased her wheelchair through the rubble to a spot inside from where we could watch the comings and goings at Mickey's. I clamped a bracket on an exposed water pipe to steady the camera and zoomed in on the entrance to the bar.

A short time later, a pair of city detectives walked into Mickey's and during the next five minutes, I photographed close to twenty patrons as the place emptied out. Martha watched through the binoculars while I captured images as fast as the camera would go.

Neither of us heard the two come up behind us until one spoke.

"What the hell do we have going on here?"

THE LAST THING I EXPECTED was to be accosted by a couple of women. One was blond with dark eyebrows, the other had dark hair piled high in a bee-hive with a tattoo on her neck-some kind of Chinese symbol. They wore jeans, t-shirts with the sleeves and midriff area ripped off, and metal studs in both their navels and lips-like many of the women you'd run into at Wal-Mart. I saw Martha's hand moving slowly toward her cell phone.

I cleared my throat. "We're working undercover here. You'd better run along if you don't want to get in trouble."

The blond smacked a wad of gum and pointed a finger at Martha. "Just keep your hands where we can see them, Sweetie. And you, " she said looking at me, "what did Sam Jones tell you, Baimbridge?"

Sam Jones? "He-told us to stay away."

"Right. And he don't like it when you don't listen."

"We...just-"

"You are endangering the lives of every officer down here. If you don't want to be charged with interfering with an investigation, then do as you're told."

Martha and I said little on the way back to Mom and Dad's. We'd had the hell scared out of us and agreed that in the future we needed to take along some kind of protection. Next time, it might not be the police.

When we arrived back at the house, Mom was loading her car for what she called her missionary work-a visit to some shut-in's to deliver food and see to it that they had everything they needed.

She saw that our plans had changed and begged us to go.

Twelve miles southwest of Wilmington she turned up a dirt road, passed two abandoned doublewides parked in what appeared to be a makeshift trash dump, and stopped at a small farm up on a hill.

I'd been here before-dozens of times going back to my childhood. I think this was Mom's favorite case. She'd stopped doing for most of the others, but not this one. The man that lived here was named Winston. I'd always liked him. He was younger than the rest and treated everybody special.

He'd been burned horribly in a fire. His skin had melted like a wax doll set too close to the stove. His nose and his ears were mostly gone, just enough left to show where they'd been. His eyelids always looked tight and red, and he blinked all the time. He had no hair anywhere that I could see except a tiny patch on the right side of his head. No eyebrows. No eyelashes. And no lips.

Martha and I thought his mouth looked like it belonged on a fish. I had nightmares about him that went on for more than a year after seeing him for the first time. But now I hardly notice.

He made his living raising livestock for the local meat markets. Cattle, pigs, goats, and chickens. He smoked Borkum Riff tobacco in a pipe, an aroma I could still smell in my clothes long after we were gone. To this day I love to smell it.

It had been at least ten years since I'd been there. He welcomed us in as he always did and seemed genuinely pleased that Martha and I had come. He wanted to hear all about what we'd been up to since he'd seen us last and acted like he truly cared. He was thoughtful, positive, inspiring, and way too generous. I think Mom usually took home more than she brought, but maybe having someone to talk to was more important to him than the food.

He had a quick sense of humor and was the most intelligent person I'd ever met. I don't think I ever went there that I didn't leave glad I'd been.

I think Mom cared a lot about Winston, too. She always cried when we left. Sometimes for days.

After a couple of hours, he and Mom went for a walk and it was obvious why she'd kept coming back all these years. It was good to be respected, needed, and appreciated.

When I arrived back at my home, I reached across a counter of dirty dishes, seized the last clean glass in the cabinet, and splashed dinner into it from a bottle of scotch.

I kept thinking about Winston and my mother. I'd never noticed before how different she was with him. She was relaxed and charming. She smiled the whole time and laughed often. I had no idea it had been so long since I'd heard her laugh. And how I do love to hear her laugh.

All that adversity and still he made others laugh. He must have been one hell of a man. I wish Dad could have been a little more like Winston.

Stepping out the back door, I took a long swig and gazed out over the hundred-acre lake behind the house. Surrounded by aging boat docks, weathered purple martin houses, and a dampness that still lingered from winter, it never failed to calm my nerves and soothe the beast within me. One more thing I was going to miss after I left.

Storm clouds moving in from the west were transforming the sky into something dark and menacing. The breeze coming off the lake died and left the air hot and muggy.

Yes sir, just as soon as this thing is over with Martha-and I finish the production I'm directing at Thalian Hall-I'm out of here. Just thinking about it was enough to lift my spirits. That and the approaching storm. God, how I do love a good storm. Especially when I'm depressed. I love the feel of it, the sound of it, and all its special effects. Some storms come up so rapidly you barely have time to get out of their way. This was the kind of storm that crept in slowly, that displayed its splendor a piece at a time like an orchestra tuning up. Maybe that's what I like about storms. The lights, colors, sounds, and intensity. The drama of it. Nature's theatre.

That's the only thing in life with which I truly am in harmony. The arts. Theatre. When I step through those massive doors into Thalian Hall with its grandeur, history, and ghosts, it's like walking into another dimensione-another universe completely separate from this one. It's a magical place where anything is possible. You only have to imagine it for it to be real. And when the intensity is high, it's the most real place on earth.

But my father says that the theatre is a refuge for queers, drug addicts, and dreamers, and that any man that works in the theatre is a loser. So I don't work in the theatre. I do it as a hobby-one I take very seriously. And that's what I'm going to miss most about Wilmington. The house, the storms, my Mom, and great theatre. My father can go to hell.

Lightning streaked across the sky on the other side of the lake. Mrs. Winslow, my overweight, snoopy backdoor neighbor around the lake to my left was folding deck chairs and putting them in a weather-beaten tool shed built decades ago by her late husband. No matter what she's doing or how she's standing, she always seems to have one eye on me. By now you'd think she would have realized I don't have friends over, I don't throw parties, and I certainly do not bring women into my house. Strange or not.

Leaves swirled into the air and the neighborhood abruptly came to life. Trees swayed and thunder broke the sound barrier. I closed my eyes and rolled my head in a circle as the vibrations rumbled through my body and out my extremities. It felt good to be touched by something. Anything.

As the wind rose and drops of rain began to spatter the deck, I chugged the rest of the scotch, went inside, and turned on the six-thirty news. Evening quickly turned to night and the flickering TV became the only light in the room. With a fresh scotch in hand, I stepped to the floor-length windows just to watch the storm. It was beautiful and passionate. Delicate and gentle one moment, violent and savage the next. Like a relationship. Like sex.

I sipped the scotch. What sex? I haven't been in a serious relationship in years. There's something about me that women don't like. Something they're able to sense right away. Some flaw in my character. Maybe I drink too much. Maybe I don't call often enough when we're not together. Maybe it's just too much work for a man that stays as busy as I do.

I studied my reflection in the window glass. It was a sad sight. A little too short. A little too thin. Hair hanging over my ears. Is that gray hair? I stepped closer and twisted my head side to side. No doubt, if I was ever going to date again, I needed to find a new stylist and start working out.

Lightning turned the night back into day and thunder exploded above the house with enough force to rattle the foundation and knock the power out. For a moment, everything stopped. It was spectacular.

Nature's theatre indeed.

The power flickered back on and the refrigerator returned to its endless humming, but the TV stayed off. I slid my glass up next to the liquor bottle and was considering whether to pour another single or go for a double when the doorbell rang an odd chime.

I started for the front door, but spotted the silhouette of a woman standing on the back deck. As she struggled to keep an umbrella over her head, I realized I'd never heard the back doorbell before. I switched on the deck lights and cracked the door enough to get my face wet.

"Yes?"